Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1887-01-03
Holiday Educational Gossip.

/ rOOihs OF the capltOl MONDAY evening,
Dec. p. After a few preliminary re-
marks by the president, E. E. Ander-
son, superintendent of Milwaukee city
schools, the Rev. Charles Lester, of Mill
waukee, gave a most able and pointed
address on the topic, Religion in the
Public Schools. He took the ground
that there is no place in the public
school for religion teaching and that it
sh ould be confined to churches, or to
societies making it a special line of
work. While he thoroughly believes
in religious and moral instruction, he
thinks little or no good will or can come
from the purely mechanical religious
exercise, such as is usually and must
usually be conducted as an opening
exercise for the school. The address
on Tuesday evening by the Rev. j. L.
Dudley, of Milwaukee, on the Duty of
the State in Educational Work, covered
more points than Mr.. Testers, was I'M
usuable able, and took about the same
view of religious teaching. He has no
faith whatever III the idea that it is any
part of the duty of the state to assist in
giving special religious training. He
summed up the whole matter from his
standpoint in pretty much the following
words: Let there be no teaching of re-
ligion in our public schools other than
that which comes from high ideals and
true moral training; let the schools be
free from the chickering's and disturb
anceS that come to them from attempts
to do this kind of work even in slight
degree and let the business of teaching
special religious doctrines be confined
to the churches and homes. 1t is bad
enough to have the churches calling
each other hard names tor Jesus's sake
without having the schools do so. The
day sessions were fully occupied in the
reading and discussion of able papers
presented by leading educators from
different parts of the state. No attempt
will be made to give here synopsis of
their line of thought since the papers
will be printed in full in the Wis. Jour-
nal of Education, published monthly at
Madison. A few of the topics with the
names of the persons presenting them
are given to show the different lines of
work discussed.
Course of science work for common
Schools, by Supt. w. Z. Morrison;
Methods of teaching the subject of at
mospheric movements, Prof. f. Hiking,
of River Falls Normal school; Science
teaching in the high schools, Prof. L.
A. Birge, of the State University; Phys
ical education in the schools, Prof. L.
r. Smith; school saving banks in Eu-
rope, S. I. Merrill, Esq, of Beloit; In
struction in civil government in the pub
lie schools, Supt. A. Hardy, of La
Crosse; over elaboration in primary
teaching, by w. j. Desmond, of the
Milwaukee schools. This paper struck
at number of educational shams and
ideas in most pointed manner, and
called forth many complimentary re-
marks for its writer, who is pleasantly
remembered by many teachers of this
county who spent the time at the
Bloomington Teachers Institute in the
summer of 80, Mr.. ID. being one of the
conductors. Many discussions on phas es
of school work not noted in the pro-
gram gave additional spice and life to
the meeting of the association. A num-
Der of committees for future work were
appointed, Prof. A. j. Hutton, of Platte
vile, being chairman of committee to
look after the organization of state
educational exhibit for the National
Educational Association which holds its
annual session next July IN Chicago.
This is very important committee and
its labors will cover a large field, An
other committee for the purpose of TAX
ing into consideration changes in the law
relating to teachers certificates and ex-
aminations, is composed of State Supt.
j. b. Thayer, Assistant State Supt. w.
II. Chandler and Supt. Chas. l.. Har-
per. Applicants for positions as school
teachers will no doubt look for the out
come of the work of this committee with
interest. The state teachers examina-
ton was in progress from Monday noon